Loss Simulation of Highly Utilized Traction Drive Induction Machines
Traction drives are magnetic and thermal highly utilized. For the design of such traction drives, that are outside of the valid range of existing modeling approa- ches, a thorough understanding of the loss underlying effects is inevitable. A loss simulation model is developed and implemented in the Institute of Electrical Machines, IEM for short, Finite Element, FE for short, simulation environment pyMOOSE to gain this thorough understanding of the highly localized loss effects. The local discretized 2D magnetic field solution of the induction machine, IM for short, is determined using non-linear time transient FE simulations. From the local field solutions, the localized losses such as har- monic Ohmic losses in the rotor and the iron losses are determined. From the FE simulation results, torque-speed operating maps of the IM are determined. The voltage and current boundaries are satisfied for each of the torque-speed operating points while minimizing the total power losses.
The simulated torque-speed maps are validated using extensive test-bench mea- surements. A very small difference of simulated and measured values of cur- rents, losses, and rotor frequency are obtained by using a single building factor. This factor was empirically determined as 0.93 which is close to the ideal value of 1.0. The developed loss simulation methods therefore allows a detailed understanding of the loss effects and to improve the design procedures of IM for use in highly utilized traction drives.
Future work aims on the integration of the new-developed simulation methodology into the IEM workbench for the simulation and design of IMs. Manufacturing influences, such as material deterioration from stamping and shrink fitting and tolerance analysis will be studied in the future.